New Delhi: In a rare miss, prime minister Manmohan Singh today could not make it to a prayer meeting to commemorate the 92nd birth anniversary of late Prime Minister P V Narasimha Rao due to urgent meetings.

Singh is a regular at such meetings being held to commemorate birth and death anniversaries of Rao, his political guru under whose request he joined politics in the 90s.

The Prime Minister had accepted the invitation from the P V Narasimha Rao Memorial Committee to attend the prayer meeting at Andhra Pradesh Bhawan.

However, Singh did not turn up at the meet attended by Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister N Kiran Kumar Reddy, Minister of State for Defence M M Pallam Raju and other senior leaders from the state.

Sources said Singh could not make it to the function as he had to attend urgent meetings with Finance Ministry officials.

They said the Prime Minister spoke to late Rao`s son and apologised for his absence.

Singh was Finance Minister under Rao during his tenure from 1991-96.
Controversial god man Chandrswami, who was close to Rao, was also present at the meeting.
PTI